Lazy Man and Money

Spring Cleaning of My Financial Mind

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I’ve had a lot of small quick thoughts on my head lately. Time to clear them out…

  • How Much Does it Cost to Drive a Car – Watching the Today this morning… Christie Hyde from AAA says it costs 42 to 68 cents a mile to drive your car. Going from a small to medium sedan will raise your price from 42 cents to 54 cents. That seems like a big jump to me. She mentioned that one of the things people forget to factor with cars is depreciation. One of the suggestions to save money was to save money on gas, but they didn’t suggest buying a used car to cut on that depreciation.
  • California 9% Sales Tax – I don’t think it’s a 9% sales tax for every county, but it’s been raised up to 9% for me in Silicon Valley. A 10.25% sales tax has been proposed for nearby Oakland. I realize the money comes from different pots (Federal, State, County, City, etc…), but it’s strange to me that last year the government was creating a stimulus package to encourage spending. Now they are raising sales tax which encourages me not spend. Maybe I should advocate that everyone play the lottery a lot more so my taxes will go down… It’s almost crazy enough to work.
  • Hawaiian Airlines Rocks – This is no surprise to me or my wife but Hawaiian airlines were top rated. We flew them from Hawaii to Australia last year and it was an amazing flight. They had free beer and wine open bar, multiple meals (that were very, very good), and I’m not joking, but snack break with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. We always take the lowest-cost flight, so we weren’t expecting much, but it was incredible.
  • The Boston Globe May Be Closing? – Not long ago, this was completely unfathomable to me. The Boston Globe is central to the city – far more wide-read than the Boston Herald. It’s no secret that Boston and New York have a little rivalry going on (heard of the Red Sox and Yankees?), so can I start the conspiracy theory that the New York Times bought the Boston Globe, just so it could shut it down 15+ years later? I’m joking of course.
  • Hannah Montana Movie – I chuckle about the statement of “tired of living a double life” in the upcoming previews. Lazy Man hears what she’s saying.

Will Creativity and Innovation Be Stifled by the Bailout?

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SimplyForties is a 47-year old single mother of a college-aged son who is navigating her way through midlife and documenting it at SimplyForties, where she writes about personal finance, relationships, grown children, the environment and social responsibility. She lives in a small rural town in far west Texas where she tries to live a better life every day.

“We are going to see a huge deflation of innovation, creativity, and responsibility, paid for by the stimulus package, IMO.”

I recently received this Tweet from someone and I’ve been seeing versions of it a lot lately. It is not my intention to debate about the bailout. I don’t see either side winning any converts and its efficacy is something only future generations will be able to decide.

What I would like to discuss is the implication of this statement and all the others like it, which is that creativity and innovation are only fueled by economics. My understanding of the baseline of this idea is that we have a huge problem and, if we throw money at it, we will not need to figure out how to solve our problem or to avoid its reoccurrence. Be that as it may, are people only innovative and creative during an economic downturn?

I have to admit that I have argued a version of this myself when I wrote about lower gas prices being a mixed blessing. In that article I voiced my concern that falling gas prices would stifle alternative energy production. Admittedly, gas prices and the Big Three automakers notwithstanding, there are still lots of people out there working in this area.

I believe people are creative and innovative because they are creative and innovative people. They see a problem and are intrigued with trying to find a solution. I was in the IT field for many years, still am in a freelance way, and every IT person I’ve ever known has a thing for problem solving. We figure out the resolution to a problem because we have a need to do so. I’m just as driven to find a resolution for IT problems presented by friends and relatives as I am by those presented by paying clients. Being an inquisitive person, I waste countless hours in my workshop coming up with perfect solutions to a myriad of challenges; many of which I could just as easily resolve by going to the store or picking up the phone. I do it because I like to solve problems and don’t like to ask for help; not because I’m broke.

At any moment there are countless numbers of inventors in their basements or their little shops tinkering away at solutions to problems. Do they hope to strike it rich? Probably. Will they stop inventing if they do? Probably not. Dean Kamen, inventor of an all-terrain wheelchair and the first insulin pump, is a very wealthy man and yet, among other things, is currently working on a generator and a water purification system to be used in third world countries. Presumably he is inspired not by money but by the needs of others. George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company and inventor of numerous photography related technologies, had a laboratory built in his mansion in Rochester, New York, and continued to refine photography and photographic equipment until he was in his seventies. His invention of the “Brownie”, a portable camera for children, in 1937 came well after he was a very rich man.

I’ve never read an interview about an artistic person, be they painter, dancer, writer, film maker, etc., who failed to say that it wasn’t about the money. Did they hope to make a living? Certainly. Would they do it regardless? Yes.

The idea that innovation and creativity are driven solely by economics really bothers me. Am I missing something? What do you think?

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Three Random Stories (and Personal Finance Links)

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I thought about not posting the last two stories, but I figured they were entertaining and the kind of thing that I would to read if I were someone else. Not too much personal finance after the first story, so if that’s your interest, just jump straight down to the links and enjoy.

Story 1 – Small Business Stimulus Package
You have a small business and need a boost in this economy? This is your lucky day. Ben at Money Smart Life is giving away a Small Business Stimulus Package. You can win $250 in cash and/or various web consulting services.

Story 2 – The Drive-In
I need people’s thoughts on this one. Let me know if I’m a jerk here or not. I’m at the McDonalds Drive-Thru the other day (probably a once-a-month thing and I typically get a double cheeseburger and move on). This drive-thru is a little weird. It actually splits the line into two for ordering and then re-merges them. I guess it’s faster that way because they two people ordering at the same time and can process the food faster. Cool idea, I just don’t know how they manage to give people the right food with the merge. If one side takes 15 minutes and I’m ordering just a double cheeseburger, well you can see how one side could move much faster than the other at times.

I’m done ordering and looking to merge back into the single line. I let one car go from the other side (the car that was before me when I entered the split to order). However, another car is trailing it, probably 18 inches of space between them. I’m waiting for them to stop and let me in (typical zipper merge), but they just keep driving. Finally I honk my horn to let them know that I’m there and waiting and have as much right as they do (there is no yield) to get my food. Probably more because if they mess up the merge, who knows if they’ll get my order right? This is a drive-thru so you know it’s already a high risk even before you add this merge twist.

So I honk my horn and the other car stops. They roll down my window and they are a 70 year old couple (just a guess). I ask them if they were going to let me merge (in not the most polite tone). They called me a name back and finally told me to go ahead. So here’s the thing… am I the biggest jerk in the world for being angry at my elders? Do they get a free pass to be rude because they are older? In the end I decided that all things being equal, all people deserve to be treated equally. It doesn’t matter if you are old, young, blue, purple, or some third gender that scientists just discovered last week.

Story 3 – The Football Game
I went to the Oakland Raiders game with my wife yesterday. Longtime readers know that I’m a big Patriots fan, so I was putting myself in enemy territory in one of the dangerous stadiums in the US. There were signs and public announcements everywhere reminding fans of conduct rules. In fact they have a SMS number where you can just pre-type in your section and row, so if there’s a problem, you hit send and the police are there. I wish I were making that last sentence up.

If that last point wasn’t strong, my wife may have had the quote of the day, “I don’t have a lot of rules in life, but one of them is that if you have a jacket covered in skulls, you get to get on the escalator ahead of me. You know, generally speaking.”

Towards the end of the game, the 100 Oakland fans (starting down 21-0 before you get a first down and losing big in 3 hours of rain will eliminate most fans) gathered around the Patriots bench to taunt them with chants of 18-1 referring to the Patriots record last year. I really don’t understand this chant. Roughly translated I take it to mean, “You just had as many wins as any team in the National Football League in a season. Also you had a higher winning percentage than anyone has achieved in any of the four major sports in the US (outside of the other two teams that I think accomplished the same feat). On the other hand, my Oakland Raiders have managed to win 18 games in the 5 years – combined.” I wish I had video of it, so I could put it on Failblog.org.

A finally football thought: The Patriots could go 11-5 winning approximately 69% of the games they play this season and not make the playoffs. Another team, Denver Broncos or San Deigo Chargers, depending tie-brakers, could go 8-8, just 50% of their games, and make the playoffs. By the way winning 69% of your games would have made you the fourth best NBA team last year and the best baseball team by a mile. Sure a lot has to do with a small sample size of the NFL, but that’s amazing. If someone has some extra time on their hands, I would love to read the highest winning percentage a team has had and not made the playoffs in any sport. I don’t know how hockey does winning percentage with it’s ties (so I’ll leave that to a hockey fan).

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